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Accessory Makers Begin Preparing for AirTags Launch

Arsenikdote said:
That is not true since Apple has technology that Tile and other's don't have. If the AirTags work like the new security feature Apple announced for things like MacBooks. Essentially when you put your laptop in "Lost" mode, it uses ultra ultra-wideband and will communicate with any other Apple ultra-wideband in range and use this device's network connection to report the location of your lost/stolen device. This is fantastic if a thief snagged your laptop and knows not to put it on a network but comes close to someone with an iPhone. It is much more scary given the example of slipping an AirTag into someone's purse/pocket and then using it to "track" them. I HOPE Apple has thought of this and has some security measures in place to handle this, I would think they are smart enough to think of this simple "hack" and would have prevention in place to make sure it can't be abused, but time will tell....
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One way to prevent it could be... each iPhone only reports the location of a nearby Airtag that isn’t tied to the same iCloud account once, when it first comes in range of it.

Another possibility would be presenting a pop up before reporting the location of an Airtag from your home. Your Apple devices know when they’re at your home location, so they could easily pop up something like “Someone is attempting to locate an Airtag located at your home. Would you like to allow this?” There could even be a setting where it could automatically allow only people in your contacts to locate Airtags within your home.
 
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One thing I have not heard but could of missed so please forgive me.

Are the air tags going to have Bluetooth and ultra wideband or just ultra wideband?
 
These will be good to keep track of my son also. He is good at running off in busy places and stressing us out.
I can imagine parents will be a great target customer.
 
I do not want to pay 40 dollars (or whatever outrageous price) for a keychain.....a damn keychain....
 
I've been trying to hold out hope that the airtags will be released along side the AR specs, like some actually-well-realized lightweight things that use the iPhone as a "base," and cost $999 or less. But 2021 is feeling a little early for the real AR reveal. Maybe they show the AR functionality via iPhone/iPad for now.
 
Piggie said:
Imagine I was some crazy nutter for a moment, who has an obsession with some female I saw in a club.

What I want to know, and perhaps someone can explain:
What's going to stop me from slipping one of these into the bottom of her bag whilst she's distracted and just waiting, then finding out where she lives as she drives home, and goes into her house/flat?
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Airtags will not stop a person from being a nutter. Where there's a nut, there's a way.
 
hidekigomi said:
All seriousness, is anything more special on AirTags than what Tiles offer?
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iOS deep integration, U1 chip location tracking, and probably a more efficient battery life? It's like asking what's more special on Apple Music than what Spotify already has?

If you're deeply invested in Apple ecosystem, own many Apple hardware, then AirTags would be more reliable, and just nicer to use.
 
Piggie said:
Imagine I was some crazy nutter for a moment, who has an obsession with some female I saw in a club.

What I want to know, and perhaps someone can explain:
What's going to stop me from slipping one of these into the bottom of her bag whilst she's distracted and just waiting, then finding out where she lives as she drives home, and goes into her house/flat?
Click to expand...
Someone could take your phone, wait outside for you to come and retrieve it and whack you over the head / rob you. You can make a bad use case for most things.
 
Piggie said:
As had been said, Tile won't do this right now due to range, but Apple's would as the 'victims' phone would transmit onto the network the location of my AirTag.

Pretty sure they have said you will be able to turn off this feature in your phone if you don't wish to be part of the network, but I guess many will have it on to enjoy the feature.

What we need, and I hope Apple do it, is something on the main screen that tells you when other people's trackers are within your range.

Then, if someone did sneak one into a ladies bag, when she checked her phone she would see a AirTag was near her, which would alert her.
Mind you, if she did not check her phone till she had arrived home, perhaps that will be too late.

I'm very interested how, given AirTags won't have a range issue theoretically, how Apple will deal with this worrying use of their product.
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I hope they don't do that. Because I will want to get some as anti-theft devices. And if thieves can see any tags close by, then they will find it and remove it.
 
sideshowuniqueuser said:
I hope they don't do that. Because I will want to get some as anti-theft devices. And if thieves can see any tags close by, then they will find it and remove it.
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It looks like they will do it and I’m pretty confident they won’t be advertised as anti-theft devices. Apple will prioritise personal privacy and safety over recovery of stolen items as it has in the past. You can’t give the general public the ability to track criminals without also enabling the vice versa. They *might* provide a ‘police mode’ where you could make your tag invisible to all but law enforcement agencies, but I don’t see it being likely.
 
Perhaps this is another one of the reasons for the delay.

Apple need to balance this carefully.

If you have everyone turning off the new network thing which will allow Air-Tags to be found due to strangers phones, then they will not be so useful.
So you want people to accept this feature and allow their phone to track other people's AirTags.

Yet at the same time, you don't want ALERTS popping up on your screen all the time that an Air-Tag has entered your location and do you wish it to be allowed to use your phone.

On the other hand, (as I said initially) someone else to perhaps plant an AirTag on or near you, so they can track where you go/live (Stalking is a real and dangerous thing for millions) so you'd want to know a strangers Air-Tag was near you.

But as I said, you don't want alerts cropping up ever few seconds as strangers air-tags came in and out of range if you were for example on a subway or sitting on a bench be a busy walkway.

Difficult to see how you get the balance here.

If I drop my Air Tag into you case/bag, YOU should be able to know this.
 
hidekigomi said:
All seriousness, is anything more special on AirTags than what Tiles offer?
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A ready install base of 1.6 billion apple devices on day one?

The biggest issue with tile tags is the uncertainty of whether there will be enough other tile tags nearby to power its network effect.

With airtags, it's way less of a concern. People around you are likely going to have an apple product of some form, dramatically increasing its usefulness.
 
Abazigal said:
A ready install base of 1.6 billion apple devices on day one?

The biggest issue with tile tags is the uncertainty of whether there will be enough other tile tags nearby to power its network effect.

With airtags, it's way less of a concern. People around you are likely going to have an apple product of some form, dramatically increasing its usefulness.
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What about if you don't live in the US (There are other countries you know!)
Where Android Phones are used by the vast majority of people.

Sometimes, very sadly..... :( I do wonder if too many people seem to think the USA is the only country on the planet.

Take China for example. 850 million smartphone users and over 80% of them have Android Phones
The US only has 260 millions smartphone users to begin with.
 
Piggie said:
What about if you don't live in the US (There are other countries you know!)
Where Android Phones are used by the vast majority of people.

Sometimes, very sadly..... :( I do wonder if too many people seem to think the USA is the only country on the planet.

Take China for example. 850 million smartphone users and over 80% of them have Android Phones
The US only has 260 millions smartphone users to begin with.
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Which also raises the question - just what is the install base of tile tags around the world like?

I live in Singapore, and I bought 4 tile tags a couple of years ago to play around with them. And I can safely say that virtually nobody uses them here. In the end, I threw them away when their batteries died out. In the meanwhile, I found their experience to be pretty subpar. Excessive battery drain due to the bluetooth pinging (about 10-20% drain each day), and frequent disconnections.

In the very least, I expect Apple's airtags to play nicer with my bluetooth connections the same way the Apple Watch and AirPods have, so battery drain should be minimal, and the experience would be more seamless overall. Second, a lot of people do use iPhones in my country, so that's an advantage over Tile already.

I will say that airtags have a ready market in the more developed countries at least.
 
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Abazigal said:
Which also raises the question - just what is the install base of tile tags around the world like?

I live in Singapore, and I bought 4 tile tags a couple of years ago to play around with them. And I can safely say that virtually nobody uses them here. In the end, I threw them away when their batteries died out. In the meanwhile, I found their experience to be pretty subpar. Excessive battery drain due to the bluetooth pinging (about 10-20% drain each day), and frequent disconnections.

In the very least, I expect Apple's airtags to play nicer with my bluetooth connections the same way the Apple Watch and AirPods have, so battery drain should be minimal, and the experience would be more seamless overall. Second, a lot of people do use iPhones in my country, so that's an advantage over Tile already.

I will say that airtags have a ready market in the more developed countries at least.
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Honestly I think most, let's say "Normal" people who don't buy things simply as it has a brand name on it, or they want to show off to friends, they have the latest tech gadget.
Probably treat these things like most people treat security items around the home.
Meaning they don't bother until it's too late.

It's a long time known thing that people will install security things, even it's it's locks and bolts on gates, after they have an intruder.
Paying out money you don't need to, for something that probably will never happen is not the focus for general consumers.

If you lost you phone, your keys etc, then found out afterwards a $20 tag would have stopped them from being lost, THEN you may go invest in one to stop it happening again.

Buying one, in case you every lose something is just not a selling point for most people.

I can of course see this being popular for a percentage of Apple fans, simply for the "I have the latest Apple product" mindset.
However, I doubt most would ever have bought them for their function it was some other brand which did the same thing.
 
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